"`No, not that one,' countered Briggs in a state of some confusion. `The one where you try and find the Gingerbreadman on the sly and make Copperfield and me look like idiots.'

"`That would be a twenty-nine, wouldn't it?' put in Mary, who wasn't going to miss out on the fun.

"` No, no,' said Jack, `Briggs means a twenty-six. A twenty-nine is where the bad guy turns out quite inexplicably to be the immediate superior.'"

Jasper Fforde knows his crime-fiction plot devices. How well do you? What crime novels, stories, movies and television shows uses the devices he has his characters discuss? And what are the implications of having fictional characters discuss plot devices, particularly Jack's tentative "I don't think so, sir"?

What I like about Fforde's plot-device numbers is that I think his jabs are affectionate. I can think of two fine crime novels that use one or more of the devices as imortant, even central plot points.

Among mysteries I've read somewhat recently I remember two cases of 29: in Minette Walters "The Icehouse" and in one very long Anne Perry novel whose title escapes me at the moment.Which fine crime novels were you thinking of?The Fourth Bear is a wonderful title.Crime fiction definitely needs more bears.

I started with The Big Over Easy, the first book in his crime series. Fforde also is four or five books into a series called Thursday Next, which I haven't read but which I think is in the same self-referential vein. One book is called The Well of Lost Plots, for example, and in another, Jane Eyre is the target of a plot to kidnap her right out of Charlotte Brontë's novel.

Nothing much in either of the two I've read or am reading reminds me of Wodehouse, and what little Waugh I read was years ago and made no great impression.

It comes back to me slowly. I read Men at Arms and Officers and Gentlemen years ago. I may have a copy of Scoop lying around, but I might not have found anything to do with newspapers interesting back when I was reading Waugh. Now I would find the subject positively depressing.

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About Me

This blog is a proud winner of the 2009 Spinetingler Award for special services to the industry and its blogkeeper a proud former guest on Wisconsin Public Radio's Here on Earth. In civilian life I'm a copy editor in Philadelphia. When not reading crime fiction, I like to read history. When doing neither, I like to travel. When doing none of the above, I like listening to music or playing it, the latter rarely and badly.
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